Filed under: Emerging Artists, Features, Scene Around Town, XCLUS!VES | Tags: B-Linn, Bears in America, Flying Lotus, folk, folk rock, funk n waffles, hip-hop, Lynrd Skynrd, Mouf, Mouth's Cradle, O Morning Records, Panda Bear, Passion Pit, Riceboy Sleeps, Sarah Aument, Sleepyhead, The Northbound Traveling Minstrel Jug Band
Sarah Aument and the rest of O, Morning Records rocked Funk 'n Waffles on Friday, 11/6
You never know what to expect while stumbling down the stairs of Syracuse’s Funk ‘n Waffles on the night of a show. Acts can alternate between amateurs and professionals, hip-hop and folk-rock. Lucky for the college crowd that O, Morning Records was on the job last night, serving an aesthetically and musically eclectic platter of shoegazing, dancing and hand-clapping.
Sarah Aument, O, Morning’s very first signee, headlined the show with her new band. Before her came stellar performances from Bears in America, Mouth’s Cradle and The Northbound Traveling Minstrel Jug Band. Not many student acts in the Syracuse area can realistically follow The NTMJB, the liveliest of the night and probably the biggest crowd-pleaser. (more…)
Filed under: Features | Tags: Closer, Daydream Nation, Devo, Echo & The Bunnymen, entertainment!, Essential Logic, faith, fanfare in the garden, Gang of Four, Grotesque (After the Gramme), is this real?, Joy Division, marquee moon, metal box, More Songs about Buildings and food, murmur, pink flag, porcupine, post-punk, Psychocandy, Public Image Ltd., Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, R.E.M., second edition, Sonic Youth, speaking in tongues, Talking Heads, The Fall, the ideal copy, THe Jesus and Mary Chain, the kitchen tapes, The Raincoats, The Ramones, The Velvet Underground, The Wipers, White Light/White Heat, Wire
In the late-’70s and early-’80s, following hot on the trails of punk rock, a new musical movement developed on both coasts of the Atlantic. The artists and bands associated with it shunned punk’s noise for a more layered, introverted songwriting and instrumentality. The movement brought with it synthesizers, Krautrock influences, as well as a more complex and experimental approach to music-making. In doing so, they set the wheels in motion for the eventual surge in ’80s and ’90s alternative rock. History has labeled this movement post-punk.
So what’s the very best of post-punk? 20 Watts’ CHRIS PARKER has the answer in our seventh 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Emerging Artists, Features, Issue 19, Issue 19 Artists | Tags: Clocks and Calendars, Sammy Awards, Square Studio, Syracuse New Times, White Picket Fence
White Picket Fence are a young band living life and doing what they do best
Take a minute and picture Varsity Pizza on a weeknight. The radio hums in the background. An employee behind the counter systematically wipes down pans. A couple sits quietly in the corner while cooks bustle around the kitchen, shouting light-hearted insults as they work.
And when the Camillus-based band White Picket Fence enter the room, everything somehow becomes brighter, warmer and more pleasant. Such is the charm of the gang of recent high school grads, who promptly pull together their shared pizza order, sit down together like a family and begin cheerfully recounting the story of how they became local legends.
For the women of the band, at least, that story goes back more than 10 years. Frontwoman Elise Miklich has been a vocalist since primary school, close with the band’s guitarist Kelly Clancy since the girls were in second grade. Drummer Garrett Koloski, bassist Ryan Chapman and guitarist Logan Messina joined the girls after they graduated from high school last June – a month that also saw WPF play their first show and release their debut album, Clocks and Calendars. They won a “Best Pop” nod at the Syracuse New Times’ Sammy Awards not long after. (more…)
Filed under: Features, Issue 19 | Tags: Bo Diddley, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Buddy Guy, Castaways, Caution Children, Charlie Musselwhite, Cornell University, Dandy Little Lions, Dark Star Orchestra, Donna the Buffalo, Dread Zeppelin, Fanclub Collective, Felicia's Atmoic Lounge, GrassRoots Festival, Haunt Bar and Grille, Ithaca College, Ithaca Underground, J-san & the Analogue Sons, jeff buckley, John Brown's Body, Johnny Dowd, Junior Wells, Kites in Space, Koko Taylor, Lyle Lovett, New York Philharmonic, Pete Panek and the Blue Cats, Popcorn Youth, Radio the Ape, Robert Cray, Sim Redmond Band, Sixteen Sixteen, Soul Asylum, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Texas Flood, The Allman Brothers Band, The Burns Sisters, The Nines, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Shop, Tundra Toes, WICB
Caution Children are one of the many bands that characterize Ithaca sound
Nestled in the foothills of the Finger Lakes, right in the heart of wine country, Ithaca is a community secluded from the rest of the world. There are no major interstates that cut an unsightly swath through its downtown; no passenger trains rumbling across the Cayuga Valley. One could easily assume that if it wasn’t for Cornell University and Ithaca College, Ithaca would have just been another Podunk upstate burg at the edges of the Rust Belt.
Yet this small college city, just over a one-hour drive from Syracuse and a little under five from New York City, is home to one of the country’s most eclectic, powerful, and thriving music scenes.
After all, the ever-elusive “Ithaca Sound” was created here, a fusion of familiar and ethnic music styles, fundamental to the popularity and acceptance of Roots. Acclaimed reggae group John Brown’s Body considers Ithaca home, as do country singer Johnny Dowd and folk singers The Burns Sisters. College-town venue The Nines has been hosting the Blue Monday jam session for over 29 years. And the local award-winning college radio station WICB carries such programming as “Home Brew,” a weekly show dedicated to local music, while graduates at the School of Music at nearby Ithaca College go on to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. (more…)
Filed under: Features, Issue 19, Issue 19 Lofi | Tags: Cassette, demos, lo-fi, tapes, vinyl, Wavves, Woods
Going lo-fi
After all the hype, rants, raves and “Pitchforkery,” I finally took the plunge and caught a Wavves one night at Bowery Ballroom. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wouldn’t say I was a Wavves fan, but I’d heard his latest album and was impressed. So his appearance with Woods and Real Estate was definitely enough to persuade me into a ticket purchase. It was, suffice it to say, a perfect sampling of the lo-fi craze that’s got the blogs in a frenzy and musicians everywhere turning to GarageBand instead of a recording studio, so I dove in.
However, what struck me at the show wasn’t the tape hiss, or hollowed-out vocals or even the rough-shod guitar lines. It was the songcraft. Real Estate and Woods both opened the show with phenomenally impressive sets. The songs were beautiful, removed from the hazy basements that their records call to mind, and thrust into a setting that let them breathe, opening up the full tonality of the guitars and allowing the sheer power of volume to fatten the sound. Woods were especially awesome, with flamethrower solos and equally tender bits (“The Number” may be my favorite song of the year) that made them sound like the pop band they should be seen as. (more…)
Filed under: Features, Issue 19 | Tags: Conan the Barbarian, Dave Matthews, Downtown Ithaca Alliance, Ithaca State Theatre, Jim DeGraff, Jimi Hendrix, JImi Hendrix: Live at Monterey, Long John and the Tights, Moosewood, positive jam, Rhiner Festival, Technicolor Trailer Park, The Nines
Jim DeGraff sketches at a Technicolor Trailer Park show
The sound of squeaky wheels and rusted metal screeches gratingly as Jim DeGraff pulls his wagon along the edge of the Chemung Canal Trust Company parking lot. Once red, the wagon has worn to a faded brown from years of abuse. Tattered boxes stacked to capacity with tubes of paint, a jug of Poland Spring water and a canvas roll-up of paintbrushes barely fit into the cart.
Pausing briefly, he lights up a hand-rolled cigarette. Today is the first annual Rhiner Festival, a day of music and historical reenactments in Ithaca’s Waterfront District, and DeGraff is anticipating a lively day of painting and honing his craft.
The self-taught painter and former bouncer has been sketching and painting live concerts for nearly five years, and his hulking, paint-splattered form — with accompanying easel and rusted wagon — has become a common sight at Central New York concerts, especially in the Finger Lake region.
“For me, going to a concert, it’s hard unless I have something to do,” DeGraff said. “If I have a sketchbook with me, it enhances the whole experience. Artwork is like catching a moment.”
Filed under: Features | Tags: The Sleeping, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Glassjaw, Nightmare of You, The Movielife, As Tall As Lions, Head Automatica, Deja Entendu, Forty Hour Train Back to Penn, The Reunion Show, Kill Your Television, Your Favorite Weapon, Tell All Your Friends, I Am the Avalanche, Kill Your Idols, Funeral For A Feeling, Worship and Tribute, From Autumn to Ashes, The Fiction We Live, Anterrabae, Shakedown Tonight, Crime In Stereo, The Troubled Stateside, Where You Want To Be, Bayside, Sirens and Condolences, Lux Courageous, Reasons That Keep the Ground Near, Believe What We Tell You, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, Straylight Run, Decadence
PREVIEW: Download 20 Watts’ LONG ISLAND SCENE MIX on Mediafire
From the year 2000 to about 2005, Long Island possessed one of the most vibrant music scenes in the U.S. At the forefront of recent hardcore and early emo trends, bands from L.I. were known for layered vocal attacks, a chip on their shoulder and a rotation of the same cast of characters. As the music got more popular, bands either broke up or changed their sound, as the scene plummeted to its current, almost non-existent depths. This is an exploration as to what happened before that.
So what’s the very best of the Long Island scene? 20 Watts’ JOHN CASSILLO has the answer in our sixth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Features | Tags: 2112, Absolution, And the Glass Handed Kites, Animals, Aqualung, Coheed and Cambria, Damnation, Days of Future Passed, De-Loused in the Comatorium, Deadwing, Dream Theater, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Fragile, Genesis, Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Vol. 1, In the Court of the Crimson King, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Lateralus, Mew, Moving Pictures, muse, OK Computer, Opeth, Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, Radiohead, Rush, Selling England By The Pound, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, The Dark Side of the Moon, The End Is Begun, The Mars Volta, The Moody Blues, Three, Tool, Yes
PREVIEW: Download 20 Watts’ PROG ROCK MIX on Mediafire
Like epic compositions, time signature changes and songs that can last for more than 15 minutes? Progressive rock is for you. Emerging primarily in Britain in the late 1960s, the oft-critically maligned genre (commonly known as “prog”) has persevered with the simple goal of adding artistic credibility to rock music. Founding fathers like Yes, Pink Floyd and Genesis set themselves apart from their contemporaries by featuring classical and jazz influences in their songwriting. The innovation continues today, as bands like Porcupine Tree and Opeth incorporate hard rock and metal into their own experimental, progressive sounds.
So what’s the very best in progressive rock? 20 Watts’ DAN KAPLAN has the answer in our fifth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Features | Tags: Times New Viking, No Age, Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Yo La Tengo, The Velvet Underground, Vivian Girls, My Bloody Valentine, Wavves, Dinosaur Jr., Japandroids, a place to bury strangers, Flipper, The Shop Assistants, Daydream Nation, Archers of Loaf, Helium, Mercury Rev
PREVIEW: Download 20 Watts’ NOISE POP MIX on Mediafire
The “noise pop” label was essentially created by music journalists who couldn’t describe what The Jesus and Mary Chain were getting at in the 1980s. With their pristine pop song structures and messy punk rock aesthetic, the Scottish four-piece took rock in a direction it hadn’t gone before. And as the current popularity of noisy, feedback-heavy bands like No Age, Japandroids and Vivian Girls suggests, neither fans nor musicians have looked back since.
So what’s the very best in noise pop? 20 Watts’ ERIC VILAS-BOAS has the answer in our fourth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
Filed under: Features | Tags: As Cities Burn, As I Lay Dying, Demon Hunter, Gwen Stacy, Haste The Day, Life In Your Way, Living Sacrifice, Maylene & The Sons of Disaster, Mortal Treason, Nodes of Ranvier, Norma Jean, Oh Sleeper, The Chariot, The Devil Wears Prada, The Handshake Murders, The Showdown, Underoath, Zao
PREVIEW: Download 20 Watts’ CHRISTIAN HARDCORE MIX on Mediafire
In the early years, Christian hardcore bands were seen as tamer, less talented copies of their secular counterparts. When most people think of religious music they think of hymns, praise and worship, and bland church music.
There’s nothing wrong with praise and worship music, but it belongs in its place: in church on Sundays. These are real bands, filled with down-to-Earth dudes that go on tour, make music videos and write about real experiences. In 2009 Christian bands are headlining festivals, topping charts, and leading the charge in their respected genres.
So what’s the very best in Christian Hardcore? 20 Watts’ ERIC HOFFMAN has the answer in our third 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!
